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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22949890">i don't remember you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes'>relationshipcrimes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>prompt fics 1 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:20:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,363</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22949890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Akechi comes around to Leblanc with Sae, Sojiro recognizes Akechi as Wakaba’s cognitive psience guinea pig from back when Akechi was young. Sojiro tries to extend a helping hand.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro &amp; Sakura Sojiro, Sakura Futaba &amp; Sakura Sojiro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>prompt fics 1 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649317</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>248</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i don't remember you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the first time that detective kid comes in without Niijima, Sojiro hasn’t quite yet made up his mind. But the cafe’s got a few other customers who might overhear something they shouldn’t, anyway, so it’s not like he could say something if he wanted to; and instead of doing anything, Sojiro sits and waits and reads his newspaper and sits and waits some more, but the kid finishes his coffee and takes his leave before the other customers do. So Sojiro sighs and folds up his newspaper and wonders if he’s missed his chance.</p><p>He goes home. Makes Futaba dinner. Has a mild argument through her closed door when she refuses to even respond, which nearly gives him a heart attack wondering if she’s gone and done something stupid while he wasn’t looking. Well, she hadn’t: She pulls the bowl of curry through the crack in the door quick as a flash and shuts it hard, and by then Sojiro’s thoroughly lost his appetite for his own dinner. Maybe he missed his chance to help Futaba. Maybe Futaba died with Wakaba, and all that’s left is to wait for the death certificate.</p><p>The second time the detective kid comes in without Niijima, Sojiro <em>has</em> made up his mind.</p><p>“Don’t I know you from someplace?” says Sojiro when he passes the kid his coffee.</p><p>“Unfortunately, a few people nowadays know me from someplace,” says the kid pleasantly.</p><p>“You just got one of those faces, huh?”</p><p>The kid’s does not have one of those faces. Goro Akechi has a face the spitting image of his mother; it’s unmistakable, and also frigidly plastic, like he inherited not only his mother’s genes and his mother’s last name, but his mother’s rigor mortis, too. “It tends to be more the TV publicity, I’m afraid,” says Akechi.</p><p>“I don’t watch TV,” says Sojiro, over the sound of TV blaring in the corner of the cafe, and rubs his beard in a show of contemplation. “I swear I remember you from somewhere else.”</p><p>Akechi’s eyes flicker to the cafe door, which is what tells Sojiro that what comes out of his mouth next will be a lie. He’s got a hard edge in his voice now: “Is that so? I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you.”</p><p>Oh, he’s one of those who thinks that a good threat qualifies as safety. A trait shared by dangerous megalomaniacs, common thugs, and cornered animals. Cute. “Must’ve been a mistake,” says Sojiro. “Could’ve sworn I saw someone just like you with a good friend of mine--Isshiki, was her last name. Was years ago. Maybe you remember her?”</p><p>Akechi’s gone absolutely still. A trait also shared by dangerous megalomanics and cornered animals. But it rules out “common thug” as an option, at least.</p><p>“If you don’t, that’s probably for the best. She ran with a dangerous crowd near the end of her career. Wouldn’t have been any good for a nice kid to get involved with something like that.”</p><p>Akechi stands up sharply. “Thank you for the coffee, but I have to be going now.”</p><p>“Are you sure? Didn’t expect someone like you to lose your nerve so fast.”</p><p>“I see no legal, logical, or interesting reason why I should sit here and suffer your thinly veiled interrogation--”</p><p>“Sit back down,” says Sojiro.</p><p>“--or take orders from a <em>shopkeeper</em>,” Akechi says. His words are a polite hiss through his teeth.</p><p>“Sit back down,” says Sojiro again.</p><p>Akechi’s smile is careening towards bared teeth. “Are you going to make me? You, the man under investigation of child neglect?”</p><p>“Or I’ll let Niijima-san know you’re tampering with her case and ruining half the permissible testimony she could use in court, yeah.”</p><p>As it turns out, between the two of them, Sojiro is the common thug who goes around threatening children.</p><p>Akechi’s quite visibly doing mental calculations on whether or not that’s even legal or if Sojiro’s bluffing (it’s both), so Sojiro keeps going before his big teenaged brain can sort itself out. “Maybe you don’t remember me,” Sojiro says. “Maybe you really don’t, or you just refuse. But however it happens…”</p><p>Sojiro takes his glasses off and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Niijima’s got the same look Isshiki did. She’s running with a dangerous crowd, too.” <em>And they’ll run her into the dirt and she’ll go willingly and headlong for love of her work</em>, Sojiro doesn’t say. “Take it from me, kid. Whether or not you’re Wakaba’s favorite guinea pig from back in the day, you don’t want to hang around with the dangerous crowd.”</p><p>“I should run and cower from my enemies, is that it?”</p><p>“That’s usually what you do with enemies, yeah.”</p><p>“The coward’s way out?” says Akechi so sweetly it sounds just like a compliment. “I should stick my head in the sand and turn away from the ugly truths of this world?”</p><p>“It’s the survivor’s way out. You can’t fight every battle,” says Sojiro. “You can’t save the whole world. Sometimes you can only save one person.”</p><p>“<em>One</em>,” Akechi scoffs.</p><p>“One is better than none,” says Sojiro. “Pick every battle that comes your way, and you’ll be dead before you’re twenty.”</p><p>Akechi has the look of someone who’s completely tuned out everything Sojiro just said. Doesn’t believe him, or maybe just doesn’t care about dying young. Geez, kids nowadays--first that punk Akira, and now this one. “Oh, fine,” says Sojiro, and passes him a business card--one of the few he has left, ‘cause he hates getting the damn things reprinted. “That’s the Leblanc landline. You ever need an out--you ever find yourself over your head, and need a place to disappear…”</p><p>“I don’t need your pity.”</p><p>“I’m just an old man still cleaning up Isshiki’s mess,” says Sojiro.</p><p>Akechi, eventually, takes the card with disdain. Kinda makes Sojiro wanna sock him, and really makes him wonder where he got <em>that</em> from because his mother didn’t have a nasty bone in her body, but it’s better than that plastic sparkle-thing he had going on. “And this little establishment of old wood and barely-legal government pension is going to operate as witness protection services on <em>whose</em> power?”</p><p>“Just mine,” says Sojiro coolly. “Just me and my cafe and my coffee beans, kid. But it works well enough, doesn’t it?” Sojiro goes on before Akechi can say something else that makes Sojiro want to call him a little snot. “Can’t save the world, but I’ve got this little place in the corner of it.”</p><p>“What difference does that make when the rest of the world burns?” Akechi sneers.</p><p>“Makes a difference to the person who has the guts to call that landline,” says Sojiro.</p><p>For one long moment, Akechi stares at him in mute, furious shock, like he’s going to shout Sojiro out of his own shop. For one long moment, Sojiro misses Wakaba so much he thinks he’ll die right there. Akechi does not yell. Sojiro does not die.</p><p>“Thank you for the coffee,” says Akechi curtly, and spins around on his heel and strides out the cafe door.</p><p>“Come again,” says Sojiro.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>That night, Sojiro knocks on Futaba’s door. “Hey. Hungry?”</p><p>There’s a pause, then: “Hi, hungry. I’m Futaba,” says Futaba’s tiny voice.</p><p>Sojiro chuckles. “Alright, you got me. You coming out for dinner?”</p><p>It’s been so long since Futaba’s cracked a joke, and in the long silence that follows, Sojiro convinces himself that today’s the day she’s going to come out, even if only for twenty minutes to pick at a bowl of rice. Today’s the day things might finally get better. Even if it doesn’t, he’ll at least get to see her face for the first time in forever.</p><p>“You can just leave it by the door,” says Futaba’s voice.</p><p>Sojiro bites his tongue.</p><p>“Alright,” he says. “I’ll be up for a bit reading the paper, if you change your mind.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>So Sojiro goes to the living room and sits and waits and reads his newspaper and sits and waits some more. Futaba does not come out. But it’s worth betting that she might, Sojiro figures. He turns the page. He waits some more.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/p5crimes">@p5crimes</a><br/>tumblr <a href="http://akechicrimes.tumblr.com">@akechicrimes</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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